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Thread: Idaho Capital Punishment News

  1. #41
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    I’d say just get a pole and stick a silicone hand on it. The Chaplain can touch from a distance and the judicial system won’t waste time on this bs.
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  2. #42
    Senior Member CnCP Addict one_two_bomb's Avatar
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    They are still going to challenge it at every level, and I guarantee some court is going to at least hear the case.

  3. #43
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Steven AB's Avatar
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    Many states already passed a law allowing back-up methods to lethal injection, but we are still waiting for a single enforcing it. When that will happen, it will set a decisive precedent for other states to follow.

    In Idaho, they will surely develop a protocol, which will take months. What is not inevitable is the stay:

    At the federal level, the requirement for a stay is a likelihood of success on the merits, so Idaho can well convince the U.S. Supreme Court that there is none, and to overturn any Ninth Circuit stay to the contrary.

    At the state level, I frankly don’t know what the Idaho legal standard for a stay is, but what is sure is that the goal of the state attorney general should be to convince the state supreme court that the convict hasn’t met it, and to overturn any lower court stay to the contrary.

    If they really want to resume executions before firing squad become enforceable, the state legislature, the governor or the att-gen should summon the director of corrections and ask him in camera why he cannot obtain lethal injection drugs despite the recent confidentiality law. Couldn’t he just telephone to his Texas or Florida counterpart?
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  4. #44
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Where is IDOC at in establishing a firing squad facility?

    By Angela Kernd
    Idaho News

    Next month, an Idaho law goes into effect making the firing squad a secondary means of execution.

    With the chemicals needed for lethal injection harder and harder to find, Idaho is working to establish a firing squad as an alternate option.

    Idaho Department of Correction officials say it's reviewing policies from other jurisdictions to develop an understanding of what's needed for the infrastructure. The policies and procedures they develop will serve as the foundation for the design of a facility, a spokesperson for IDOC said.

    So CBS2 reached out to other states with execution by firing squad on the books to see what it might take to build a facility here.

    Washington and Oregon are moving away from the death penalty altogether. Washington abolished it this spring.

    "The penalty has been applied unequally and in a racially insensitive manner. Let's be clear, by this act, we are ending the death penalty in the state of Washington, period," Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said as he signed the legislation on April 20, 2023.

    Former Oregon Governor Kate Brown commuted the sentences of all death row inmates last year.

    But Idaho is leaning into it.

    "It's important for victims, those who were murdered, their families, and for the rule of law," said Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, during the 2023 session. "It is certain and it is quick."

    Gov. Brad Little said in his transmittal letter, "It is the responsibility of the state of Idaho to follow the law and ensure that lawful criminal sentences are carried out."

    In 1982, the firing squad became an option in Idaho, but it was never used. In 2009, it was taken off the books.

    Utah is the only state in the modern era to use the firing squad to execute inmates.

    Utah procedure requires the prisoner to be seated in front of a wood panel between stacked sandbags to keep bullets from ricocheting around. A target is placed over the inmate's heart, the inmate is given two minutes for final words, and five shooters set up more than 21 feet from the chair with rifles pointing through slots in the wall. Two rounds are loaded in each weapon, one of them with two blank cartridges.

    Renovations to South Carolina's capital punishment facility were completed in March of last year - about 10 months after adding the firing squad as a secondary means of execution.

    According to South Carolina officials, the inmate would be strapped to a metal chair, have a hood placed over their head, a small target placed over the heart, surrounded by protective equipment. Bullet-resistant glass separates the witness room from the death chamber. The chair faces a wall with a rectangular opening 15 feet away.

    The firing squad members -- volunteers who work for the department of correction -- are behind the wall with rifles facing the inmate through the opening, which won't be visible to the witnesses. All three rifles would be loaded with live ammunition.

    After the warden reads the execution order, the team fires. Then a doctor examines the inmate and a curtain is drawn.

    South Carolina officials say they spent about $53,600 to make the changes.

    Idaho lawmakers have already put aside $750,000 dollars for the Idaho State Department of Correction to set up the facility.

    "There's no way in the world you're going to spend $750,000 on a firing squad facility. The firing squad facility that was pictured on news stories is a chair with about 10 bags. I assume they're sandbags adjacent to the chair with a brown wall in back of it," Rep. John Gannon, D-Boise, said during floor debate in the House.

    During debate in the Senate, Sen. Doug Ricks, R-Rexburg, said he had talks with IDOC's director, Josh Tewalt.

    "That is possible with electronics to use some sort of remote trigger on there. It could be scheduled. You wouldn't necessarily have to have several people in a line as a firing squad. They could [do it] in what would appear to be a more humane way of doing it," Ricks said.

    In fact, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, in 1913, Nevada invented an automated firing squad - made up of three rifles mounted on an iron frame that fired simultaneously. It was only used once.

    Oklahoma has never used a firing squad as a method to execute prisoners since statehood, but current law allows for it if other methods are deemed unconstitutional or unavailable. According to reports from the Associated Press, Oklahoma does not currently have execution protocols in place for any method other than lethal injection

    Idaho's law reinstating the firing squad as a secondary means of execution is set to go into effect on July 1, 2023. It's unclear when a facility could be up and running. At this point, IDOC officials say they can’t speculate about a timeline for the process.

    https://idahonews.com/news/local/whe...squad-facility
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  5. #45
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mastro Titta's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike View Post

    During debate in the Senate, Sen. Doug Ricks, R-Rexburg, said he had talks with IDOC's director, Josh Tewalt.

    "That is possible with electronics to use some sort of remote trigger on there. It could be scheduled. You wouldn't necessarily have to have several people in a line as a firing squad. They could [do it] in what would appear to be a more humane way of doing it," Ricks said.
    Frankly, I think Director Tewalt is deliberately trying to sabotage capital punishment in Idaho. There are no reasons for losing who knows how many months trying to build an electronic "remote trigger" for the executions. Idaho is a deep-red state, and I do not doubt for a second that plenty of cops or military snipers or even simple NRA card carrying members would be more than happy to volunteer. There is no need for an Alabama-like situation.

    In the meantime, he still needs to explain (possibly under oath) how come, with a secrecy law in place, under his tenure Idaho has not been able to obtain not even one dose of lethal drugs. It's more than suspect.

  6. #46
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Idaho found lethal injection drugs for an execution. Here’s how much they cost taxpayers

    By KEVIN FIXLER
    The Idaho Statesman

    The price of drugs that Idaho needs to execute a death row inmate has tripled since the last time the state carried out a lethal injection more than a decade ago. The Idaho Department of Correction paid $50,000 for 15 grams of pentobarbital, according to a purchase order for the execution drugs obtained by the Idaho Statesman through a public records request. The document’s release also is the first time state prison officials have revealed which drug they acquired for the planned execution of Thomas Creech, Idaho’s longest-serving death row inmate. “Upon payment, vendor agrees to maintain and store the items in accordance with all applicable regulations until IDOC takes possession of the items,” the document read. “Vendor agrees to refund IDOC an amount up to $50,000 if it fails to provide to IDOC the purchased items, in whole or in part.” IDOC last month disclosed that prison officials had secured lethal injection drugs for the first time in years when they also announced a death warrant for the 73-year-old Creech, a convicted quadruple-murderer. Prison officials declined to tell the Statesman whether they have the pentobarbital on hand. Creech’s execution has since been postponed.

    According to the state prison system’s execution procedures, officials use 5 grams of pentobarbital to lethally inject a prisoner in the one-drug protocol. In case they are needed, two backup sets of syringes also are prepared for a lethal injection, each with 5 grams of pentobarbital. IDOC Director Josh Tewalt did not respond Thursday to a Statesman interview request through a department spokesperson about Idaho’s execution process. Tewalt, appointed to the post in December 2018, has not made himself available for similar interview requests from the Statesman concerning executions for more than two years. In a phone interview with the Idaho Capital Sun earlier this month, Tewalt said IDOC won’t force the issue as Creech’s legal process plays out. The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole agreed to grant Creech a hearing in January to review whether to recommend reducing his death sentence to life in prison. “We will not move forward unless we can do it in a way that is dignified,” Tewalt said. “We are committed to carrying it out with integrity, dignity and respect for everyone involved.”

    UNABLE TO GET DRUGS, IDOC DELAYED EXECUTION

    The prison system’s ability to purchase execution drugs came as a bit of a surprise. Prisons in the states across the U.S. that maintain active capital punishment have increasingly struggled to buy the drugs used to perform lethal injections. Prison officials have said manufacturers and other suppliers won’t sell them drugs like pentobarbital, a potent sedative that can stop a person’s breathing in higher doses, out of fear of being identified, leading to public backlash for assisting with an execution — a hotly contested national issue. Unable to locate execution drugs despite past efforts, Idaho last year passed a shield law that prevents the release of certain records to the public to protect the identity of potential drug suppliers. Proponents said the goal of the law is to conceal the suppliers’ information to encourage them to sell the drugs to the state. Prison officials still found themselves without the ability to acquire the drugs necessary for a lethal injection. Late last year, IDOC was forced to postpone the execution of another death row inmate after the agency could not purchase them. The occurrence led state lawmakers earlier this year to pass another law that establishes a firing squad as the backup execution method when lethal injection drugs are unavailable. In a legal filing in March, state officials again acknowledged the prison system still had not been able obtain the lethal drugs. And as recently as Oct. 10 — two days before Creech was served a death warrant — state officials once more affirmed in a legal filing that Idaho’s prison system “does not have the present ability to carry out an execution via lethal injection or firing squad” while the shooting facility remains in development. As a result of the shield law, it’s unclear where prison officials found the drugs intended for Creech’s execution. Also redacted from the execution drug order was the purchase date. IDOC officials cited several public records exemptions related to executions for redacting the purchase date, including those covered in the shield law. The agency failed to provide the responsive records within a maximum of 10 business days, as required by the Idaho Public Records Act. Instead, IDOC staff took more than double that amount of time, at 23 business days. In its eventual response, IDOC raised concerns that release of the information may jeopardize the state’s ability to carry out an execution.

    The redaction made former state Rep. Greg Chaney, a Caldwell-based attorney who sponsored the shield law, wonder about IDOC’s rationale. The law appears to have worked as intended, he said, in that it helped IDOC obtain lethal injection drugs, but concealing the purchase date left him with questions. “Exceptions to government transparency should be as narrow as possible,” Chaney said in a statement to the Statesman. “I’d be interested to know how its disclosure would lead to the identity of the supplier. If there isn’t a way that the withheld information could lead to the disclosure of the supplier, then it goes beyond the spirit of the legislation.”

    QUESTIONS OVER USE OF COMPOUNDING PHARMACIES

    For Idaho’s most recent executions, prison officials resorted to covert tactics to conceal information from the public about where they bought execution drugs, and how much they paid, the Statesman previously reported. In the middle of a yearslong legal battle over public records, which IDOC lost in 2021 and finally forced release of documents disclosing the information, the agency further tightened its rules around records exemptions for documents related to executions. The records revealed that IDOC used confidential cash accounts to hide the execution drug purchases from two out-of-state compounding pharmacies with questionable safety records. Compounding pharmacies are custom drug producers that are less regulated because they’re not closely monitored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In 2012, state prison officials paid as much as $15,000 in cash for pentobarbital, according to public records and past court depositions. The drugs, bought from the Union Avenue Compounding Pharmacy in Tacoma, Washington, were used in the lethal injection execution of convicted murderer Richard Leavitt in June 2012. The year prior, prison officials paid as much as $10,000 in cash to the University Compounding Pharmacy in Salt Lake City for pentobarbital, according to a sworn deposition by another of IDOC’s former deputy prison chiefs, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. Those drugs were used to execute Paul Rhoades, a convicted triple-murderer, in November 2011. Because of Idaho’s new shield law, the public is no longer entitled to know whether prison officials again purchased pentobarbital from a compounding pharmacy, rather than from a commercial drug manufacturer. The difference between the two versions is considerable, with potentially significant consequences for the expiration of a drug like pentobarbital, said Dr. Jim Ruble, an attorney and longtime doctor of pharmacy who teaches law and ethics courses at the University of Utah’s College of Pharmacy. Compounded pentobarbital reaches its “beyond use date” as far out as 45 days, but as early as two days, based on several factors, including the conditions in which it’s stored, Ruble told the Statesman by phone. However, a manufactured version — like that sold to hospitals — doesn’t expire for up to four years, he said. “Therein is the challenge with the transparency in all of this,” Ruble said. “We don’t have readily available to us the recipe, so to speak, or the formulation that is being utilized by compounding pharmacies, so we have to take it to some degree on faith or face value. When either version reaches its shelf life, it begins to lose potency and essentially becomes toxic, he said. Visible crystallized particles begin to form in the liquid pentobarbital solution, which, if injected, can cause “undue suffering” from “excessive levels of pain,” Ruble told the Statesman. If injected particles are large enough, they can cause internal bleeding in tissues, the lungs or other organs.

    Such treatment, including during the lethal injection of a prisoner, could be grounds for a legal challenge that the use of potentially expired execution drugs violates an inmate’s rights against cruel and unusual punishment guaranteed under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In a statement after IDOC announced Creech’s death warrant, his attorneys at the nonprofit Federal Defender Services of Idaho said they’d be exploring just that very kind of litigation. “Given the shady pharmacies that the state has obtained the lethal drugs from for the past two Idaho executions, … we remain highly concerned about the measures the state resorted to this time to find a drug supplier,” Deborah A. Czuba, supervising attorney of the legal nonprofit’s unit that oversees death penalty cases, said in a statement. “We will be doing everything we can to fight for Mr. Creech’s life, including challenging the quality of the drugs and execution by lethal injection.” IDOC DISPUTES PARKING LOT PURCHASE Attorneys at the Federal Defender Services of Idaho alleged in a prior case representing Gerald Pizzuto, another death row inmate, that Tewalt, then a deputy chief of prisons, was among two Idaho prison officials who bought the execution drugs in Tacoma in an evening exchange in a Walmart parking lot. The compounding pharmacy in Tacoma is located across the street from the city’s only Walmart.

    Flight records, previously obtained by the Statesman from the Idaho Division of Aeronautics through a public records request, place Tewalt and then-IDOC prisons chief Kevin Kempf on a state-chartered flight back and forth from Tacoma in May 2012 at an estimated cost of about $2,500. The Tacoma pharmacist acknowledged in a December 2021 statement to the Statesman the in-person delivery of pentobarbital to members of IDOC in May 2012. In a statement to the Capital Sun since shared with the Statesman, IDOC officials denied the account of how they acquired the drugs. The agency called the legal nonprofit’s accusation that they bought the drugs in a parking lot “absurd and false,” in anticipation of additional media coverage tied to Creech’s scheduled execution. “Some of it will surely include a repetition of certain absurd and false allegations that were intended to shock and mislead, like the allegation that the chemicals used in prior executions were bought in a Walmart parking lot,” read the statement from Jeff Ray, IDOC’s spokesperson. “Department officials deny that allegation. The chemicals were procured in accordance with state and federal laws.”

    https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/...281926143.html
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  7. #47
    Senior Member CnCP Addict one_two_bomb's Avatar
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    Lol so do they have the drugs or not? I'm confused ��

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